Bowe Hopes To Feed World A New Breed

January 15, 1993|by GARY R. BLOCKUS, The Morning Call

Those who believe there are no more heroes in sports haven't met Riddick Bowe.

Raised in the same Brownsville, New York City neighborhood as the notorious Mike Tyson, Bowe and his management team are clamoring to earn the newly-crowned heavyweight champion the most heroic image this side of Operation Desert Storm.

Bowe, who won the heavyweight title from Evander Holyfield in a 12-round decision over then-undisputed champion Evander Holyfield, is training at Brookdale on the Lake in Scotrun for his first title defense, a 12-rounder against former champion Michael Dokes at Madison Square Garden in New York City on Feb. 6.

Newman and Bowe were en route to Brookdale on the Lake from the Newark Airport Wednesday night, discussing a six-figure deal Bowe is about to sign with FILA sports apparel.

"He said "I saw something on TV about the kids starving in Somalia,"' Newman began. By the end of the story, he explained that Bowe was willing to donate the entire contract figure to the relief effort in Somalia.

"The essence of Riddick Bowe, the person he is, came out of that conversation last night," Newman concluded.

Riddick "Big Daddy" Bowe is a 25-year-old with a 32-0 record (27 knockouts). His desire to help feed the Somalian people is dictated as much by his own upbringing as it is by the love he has for his two daughters, Riddicia, age 4, and Brenda, age 2.

Bowe doesn't want to feed Somalia, however. He wants to feed the world a new breed of heavyweight champion.

"I want to fight as often as possible," he said yesterday. "I want to be known as the fighting champion. When you take time off, you stop learning. You tend to fall back and I don't want that to happen to me."

Bowe was echoing words once spoken by Tyson, who took time off between fights, ballooned in weight, dropped his management team, and couldn't handle the pressures of being in the public eye.

"I've been enjoying myself since Day 1," he said of owning the heavyweight championship. "With this (title) comes some sort of responsibility to be in the public eye.

"I feel like I felt in Brownsville. It's a great feeling. It's a great honor. But when you're down to Earth, that makes all the difference . . . With me, what you see is what you get."

When most people look at Bowe, they see a 6-foot-5, 235-pound fighter who has risen to the top of his profession after a professional career that debuted March 6, 1989.

When Eddie Futch, Bowe's trainer, looks at his heavyweight champion, he sees a fighter who has the opportunity to be better than Muhammad Ali.

Futch is one of the most respected trainers in the world. He has trained five former heavyweight champions: Joe Frazier, Ken Norton, Larry Holmes, Michael Spinks and Trevor Berbick.

"Why not," Futch asked back when pressed as to why he felt Bowe could be better than Ali. "At 25, he's the best heavyweight in the world and he's stil learning.

"He has the tools. It took me four years to bring him from a standing start to be heavyweight champion of the world. He's got all the tools, now he's working on technique and strategy."

Futch explained that Bowe was a one-handed fighter when he first turned pro. Bowe's right hand was injured as an amateur and he never threw it with authority, only played pat-a-cake with his right on the heavy bag.

Futch's special hand wrapping technique ("I've never seen anyone wrap like me") gave Bowe the confidence to use the right hand.

"He's got a good left jab and he punches well with the right hand," Futch offered. "He's got a terrific right uppercut. Now I'm teaching him to use them in different ways."

Futch feels Bowe's best performances are three years away, a very lucrative commerical aspect for Bowe, who signed a six-fight deal with Home Box Office for $100 million.

The contract term runs 18 months, so Bowe will be fighting just about every three months before he experiences his best skills, and most likley, best pay-per-view money.

Dokes held the World Boxing Association heavyweight championship in 1982, but has since retired from the game twice, once due to a cocaine addiction. The 34-year-old Dokes has a 50-3-2 record with 32 Kos. He's won nine fights in a row since suffering a knockout at the hands of Razor Rudduck.

While Bowe won the unified title against Holyfield, the World Boxing Council stripped him of that organization's championship. To show his disgust, Bowe dropped the WBC title belt in a garbage can.

Not only did the WBC strip Bowe of the belt, but they awarded it to England's Lennox Lewis, who never fought for the title. Lewis defeated Bowe in the 1988 Olympics.